It is important to develop a well-defined, answerable research question because it
Tips for developing a clinical research question:
Adopted from CEBM: what makes a good clinical question
Example of a vague question:
"Is mobile technology good at managing diabetes?"
Problems:
Example of a well-defined question:
"Are mobile health technology interventions more effective in managing patients with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes than in-person care?"
PICO or PICO(T) (patient/problem/population, intervention, comparison, outcome, time) is a well-known approach for framing a research question. It divides the research question into key components making it easy and searchable.
Example: "Are mobile health technology interventions more effective in managing patients with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes than in-person care?"
Patient/Problem/Population | patients with diabetes (Type 1 and Type 2) |
Intervention | mobile health technology |
Comparison | in-person care |
Outcome | effectiveness in managing diabetes |
Time (added when there is a time component to the question) |
n/a |
Other question formulation frameworks:
PIE (Population, Intervention, Effect / Outcome)
SPIDER (Sample, Phenomena of Interest, Design, Evaluation, Research type)
SPICE (Setting, Perspective, Intervention, Comparison, Evaluation)
ECLIPSE (Expectation, Client group, Location, Impact, Professionals, Service)